


To Catch a Thief

by thedevilchicken



Category: Original Work
Genre: Captivity, Drugged Sex, Extremely Dubious Consent, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 08:57:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20739608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken





	To Catch a Thief

**Author's Note:**

  * For [apirateapoetapawn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/apirateapoetapawn/gifts).

He should never have come here. He knows that now, but it's more than just a bit too late. 

If he's honest about it, William was never a particularly good thief. He hadn't been doing it for all that long when retirement was forced upon him and he hadn't exactly got there by choice; he's a blacksmith by trade, or at least once upon a time he used to be. He was a journeyman working with a master smith in Watertown, on the road by the river leading north toward Highgate. 

But then his master's landlord's daughter said she'd caught him with their serving girl and that was that: they threw him out on his ear. He wouldn't have minded that much, but he'd never even touched her. He'd only ever told his master's landlord's daughter that he wouldn't touch her; he'd said it was more than his job was worth, so she'd gone and proved him wrong. 

He was more or less starving not very long afterwards. He sold everything he owned, but he'd never owned much in the first place. When the money from that was gone, he begged in the streets, but no one had much time for beggars. He tried the abbey nearby, and the monks were kinder, but they knew his ex-master's landlord. Soon, he had to move on, and not long after that, well, he was stealing. 

He hated it. He was terrible at it. He's too big and too ungainly - too much like a blacksmith's journeyman - to be fleet of foot or nimble or particularly quiet. He's big and blunt and tall, and broad across the shoulders, all dark hair and callused fingers. He's too strong to be quick and too large to be unnoticed. And that's how he's found himself where he is now. 

Aelfric Estermont is the lord in Highgate. The high gate the town's named after is on his land, in fact, on the eastern mount that's right there in his own name. But for all it sounds grand, Highgate's not a very large town; it's just a very rich one, full of merchants trading up and down the river, so William didn't feel so bad for stealing there. Of course, he should have left the lord's house alone, and he would have if he'd had the slightest notion in his head of where he was. The fact is he's a blacksmith by trade; he's not got the hands for cartography.

Once he got inside, he was caught immediately. He really wasn't surprised. Desperate, yes. Hungry, yes. Basically the worst thief in the kingdom, yes. But not surprised.

Lord Estermont, fresh from his bed, put the tip of his sword to William's throat. He raised a trickle of blood - deliberately, from what William could tell - and said, "My, my. What do we have here?"

"I didn't mean any harm, my lord," William replied. "It's just, you see, I'm starving. I only wanted enough to eat." 

"I see," said Estermont, but he didn't lower his sword. William expected him to run him through; he would have been within his rights to. But he absolutely didn't. 

The fact he tied him to a chair but didn't send a man for the sheriff should have been an early warning sign. The fact he did so stark naked might have been another, especially as he didn't seem to be in much of a hurry to dress. And then he fed him, with a silver fork from a porcelain plate, but there was something in the food. William's head swam. His skin burned. His cock started to swell. He was almost sure he was going to die right then and there, and he supposed at least that would be an end to it. His career as a thief was going to end even worse than it had as a blacksmith.

Lord Estermont didn't kill him, though. These days, William doesn't think he ever will. He has too many other uses for him. 

Estermont is small and lean and handsome, long-haired and sharp-eyed, and a widower at fifty-one years old. His elder son commands an army. His younger son is the abbott there in Highgate Abbey. His daughter's married to the king and all three of them are older now than William is. No one cares what Lord Estermont does with a man like him, who he caught trying to steal from him one night. And there's no one in the world who'll notice that he's gone. 

Tonight, his lord bathes him. He shaves him. He feeds him. William's head starts to swim and his skin starts to burn and the feeling is, by now, almost as familiar as his name is. Sometimes it's enough to make him beg. Sometimes he does that anyway. 

Tonight, his lord kisses him. He ties him down. He fucks him, slowly, not quite carefully, then rides him till they're both completely spent. It's been like this for years now and it shows no signs of stopping. 

But at least, he thinks, he's been well fed.


End file.
